Who Gets to Kill a Child Legally?

The drug mifepristone is the active ingredient in the abortion pill known as RU-486. On a regular basis, women in the United States legally use the drug to abort their children. This is done in complete accord with the law, with no fines or other punitive measures enacted. Thus, according to the laws of the United States of America, women can legally kill their children.

But what happens when someone other than the child’s mother attempts to kill the child? What if the child’s father would like to end the child’s life, without the consent of the unborn child’s mother? In that case, the law is not so lenient. Recently in Wisconsin, 34-year old Manishkumar Patel was charged with first-degree murder of an unborn child. What had Patel done to be charged with such a heinous crime? Apparently, his girlfriend was pregnant with his child. Patel wanted to kill the child, against the wishes of the mother. In an attempt to do so, he intentionally spiked food and drinks he offered to his girlfriend with the drug mifepristone. Consequently, according to Patel’s girlfriend, she suffered two miscarriages. Patel has been ordered to be held on bail and the case has yet to be tried (Ramde, 2007).

Cases like that of Patel’s bring to light the extremeabsurdity of our nation’s stance on abortion. The state of Wisconsin maintains a law that states that “anyone who attacks a pregnant woman and injures or kills her fetus could face life in prison” (Ramde, 2007). Patel is being charged based on that law. Yet, the laws of the country allow that same woman to visit an abortion clinic, and with the help of a doctor, ingest the same medicine that Patel used on his girlfriend. In Patel’s case, the action is “intentional homicide of an unborn child.” But if the mother does it, what is it called? Simply, legal abortion. The same child is dying, the same drug is ingested, so what is the difference? In reality, there is no moral difference. Murder is murder whether it is committed by the father of the child or by the child’s mother and a doctor. When will our deluded nation tear itself away from the carnage of legal abortion and be honest enough to admit that murder is murder, regardless of the perpetrator? How long will the Lord withhold His judgment on a nation that has filled its borders with “hands that shed innocent blood” (Proverbs 6:17)?

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